2011 Summit Speakers

Katharine Allen Co-President of InterpretAmerica, LLC, comes from the community and healthcare interpreting fields. She has worked as a freelance English/Spanish interpreter, translator, trainer and consultant since 1991, specializing in healthcare, education, disability, general legal, the environment and international policy issues. She has been owner of Sierra Sky Interpreting & Translation since 1994. Her translation and interpretation clients include a broad range of county and state social service and healthcare agencies, local courts and lawyers, environmental groups in the U.S. and South America, and language service agencies. She works with a translation partner in Chile under Team Translations.

Katharine provides language access consulting services to hospitals and clinics in California. She is co-author of the California Healthcare Interpreting Association (CHIA) Organizational Assessment Tool for Linguistic Access, which is used to help hospitals improve their language access programs. She is also a certified trainer for the Connecting Worlds 40-hour Healthcare Interpreter Training and the CHIA Standards Trainings for interpreters and administrators. She has produced and presented multiple workshops on interpreting and translating in community, healthcare and social service settings.

Katharine holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Community Development from Brown University and a Master’s Degree in Translation and Interpretation (MATI) from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She served on the Board of the California Healthcare Interpreting Association (CHIA) from 2002 through 2009, including a two-year term as President. She also served as Administrative Assistant for the Interpreters’ Division of the American Translators Association (ATA) from 2005 to 2007 and belongs to several other professional translation and interpretation organizations. She has published articles in professional publications and regularly presents on translation, interpretation and language access issues at professional conferences.

Janet L. Bailey (CSC, SC:PA, NIC Master), is the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Inc. (RID’s) first Government Affairs Representative. Calling upon her years of experience in all aspects of the profession, she represents the goals and objectives of the association and advocates for working interpreters with professional organizations, consumer groups, industry partners and government agencies. Ms. Bailey was co-founder and President of Sign Language Associates (SLA) which was the first and largest interpreting business in the nation. SLA led the field for 26 years to become a multi-million dollar company that was proud to serve and support the deaf community, while offering a supportive environment for professional interpreters. Ms. Bailey served two terms as President of RID (1991-1995) where she helped to found and serve on the NAD/RID National Council on Interpreting, which has responded to the national interpreter shortage, helped to develop the National Interpreter Certification (NIC) and the revised joint Code of Professional Conduct. She has served on the Video Interpreting Committee; was a founding member of the Interpreter Service Managers Special Interest Group; and continues to serve as a member of the Ethical Practices System Mediation Team, and as a Certification Maintenance Program Sponsor.

Rebecca Bryant is an Electrical Design Engineer and a community interpreter. She studied Electrical Engineering and Portuguese at Brigham Young University. During her twelve years with Williams Sound, she has found a way to actively pursue both her passions--developing equipment for simultaneous interpretation, including the IC-2 interpreter’s console. Rebecca is dedicated to her company’s mission of "Helping People Hear" and is passionate about facilitating communication through advances in technology. She finds great satisfaction knowing that the technological solutions her team develops greatly improve quality of life and clarity of communication.

Mary Carr graduated from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine in 1988 with a B.A. in History. After internships with the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the US Congressional Special Services Office, she joined the Sign Language Associates, Inc. (SLA) interpreter coordination staff in 1989. When she left SLA in 2007, she was Vice President of Operations. Mary built SLA’s nationally known Video Interpreting Program using state-of-the-art video conferencing solutions to deliver interpreters via IP connectivity. Mary joined the sales staff of Codian in 2007, which was then acquired by Tandberg, the market leader in end-to-end video conferencing solutions. Cisco acquired Tandberg in 2010. Mary now supports customers on the Federal Civilian Sales Team. Her background in both Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) and Video Relay Services (VRS) allows her to help Cisco solve accessibility issues for their Deaf and Hard of hearing employees.

Esther is a self-employed medical translator and interpreter trainer, currently serving on the Board of Directors of the Austin Area Translators and Interpreters Association, the Texas Association of Healthcare Interpreters and Translators, the Advisory Committee on Qualifications for Healthcare Interpreters and Translators in Texas, and the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care. She is certified by the American Translators Association for English<>Spanish translation and teaches Translation and Interpretation courses at Austin Community College as well as interpreter workshops for refugee resettlement agencies throughout Texas.

William J. Graeper is Owner of Certified Languages International in Portland, Oregon. Certified Languages specializes in Language Interpretation, which is the spoken part of Language Services, and has a further specialization in Over the Telephone (OPI) Interpreting, being one of the top service providers in the US.

A Founding Member of the language service provider’s national trade association, the Association of Language Companies, he has has held the position of Treasurer. Currently, he is active on the Leadership Council, and as Chairman of the Independent Contractor vs. Employee Task Force. He is particularly active in educating policy makers to the importance of the role played by language service companies, and language services in general. Founded in 1996, Certified Languages International, is a $15M company and employs 60, while contracting with thousands of interpreters.

Carola E. Green is a Federally Certified Court Interpreter, a California certified medical interpreter and a former California certified English/Spanish court interpreter. She currently coordinates the Court Interpreting Testing Services & Operations for the Consortium for Language Access in the Courts (CLAC) at the National Center for State Courts and provides staff support for the Federal Court Interpreter Certification Examination (FCICE) Program. She has over 15 years of professional interpreting experience and over 18 years teaching/training experience. She serves on multiple boards and committees related to the interpreting profession and has co-authored and co-edited several publications including the recent NCIHC Standards for Healthcare Interpreter Training Programs.
E-mail: cgreen@ncsc.org

Jacolyn Harmer teaches conference interpreting at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in the French and German Programs, and co-facilitates the Interpretation Practicum, while continuing to work as a freelance conference interpreter. She has contributed to the training of interpreter trainers in the US, Asia and Europe, and is a guest instructor on the faculty of the University of Geneva/ETI Master of Advanced Studies for Interpreter Trainers Program. She is a member of AIIC, formerly serving on the AIIC Training Committee.

Armando Ezquerra Hasbrun is the Director of Quality Assurance for Language Services Associates (LSA), a federally-certified court interpreter, a certified trainer for the nationally recognized “Bridging the Gap” medical interpreter training program and an adjunct professor of interpretation at La Salle University. He has been invited by a number of industry associations to present on various interpretation and translation issues, including the International Medical Interpreters Association (IMIA), the Texas Association of Healthcare Interpreters and Translators (TAHIT) and the American Translators Association (ATA).

Nataly Kelly is a Chief Research Officer with Common Sense Advisory, a market research firm dedicated to language services and technology. A former Fulbright Scholar in sociolinguistics, Ms. Kelly is the author of Telephone Interpreting: A Comprehensive Guide to the Profession, the first-ever book on the topic. A court-certified interpreter for Spanish, Nataly leads Common Sense Advisory’s research in the interpreting sector. She advises diverse organizations on the delivery and business sides of interpreting services, ranging from language services suppliers to Fortune 500 companies, and from local hospitals to government officials. Her research and viewpoints on interpreting and translation are frequently cited in mainstream media, including the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek. She has also published in peer-reviewed journals on topics of linguistics and language access, including Health Affairs and the Journal of Health Care Law and Policy.

Robin Lanier serves as the Executive Director for the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators, a position she has held since 2008.
Prior to joining NAJIT, Ms. Lanier worked for a wide range of non-profit professional organizations, advocacy groups, and trade associations, including women's groups, consumer groups, the retail industry, and transportation users. She has been a lobbyist and public affairs expert for many decades, and has worked on Capitol Hill as a Congressional aide.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree (Summa Cum Laude) in Political Science from the State University of New York - Buffalo.

Giovanna “Gio” Lester has worked in the translation and interpreting fields since 1980. Originally from Bahia, Brazil, she has lived in the US since 1985.
Gio has always been very active in her profession having served the American Translators Association as Assistant Administrator and Administrator of the Interpreters Division; PR Committee, President of ATA Florida Chapter (now defunct), developed and implemented the ATA/Red Cross Partnership Program, and presented several times for ATA and the Portuguese Language Division. She has also co-founded in 2009 the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Florida (ATIF) – which she now serves as elected President. Gio is also active leading workshops, giving presentations and writing – she has works published in The Chronicle, Protheus, FlataFlash, The Interpreters Voice, and Speaking Out!- quarterly ATIF’s newsletter. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the National Board for Certification of Medical Interpreters.
In the private sector, Gio has worked as a teacher of both English and Portuguese, worked in the banking industry and in marketing, experiences that helped shape and strengthen her professional skills.

Ewandro Magalhães is a technology-savvy, seasoned conference interpreter, with 20+ years of experience. He has a Master's in Conference Interpretation from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He is a former contractor with the U.S. Department of State, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Organization of American States and several other international organizations. He is the author of Sua Majestade, o Intérprete - o fascinante mundo da tradução simultânea (Parábola Editorial, São Paulo) and an active member of TAALS. A former distributor of conference systems in Brazil and the U.S., Ewandro has vast experience in the use and development of interpretation technologies. He is currently the Chief Interpreter at the International Telecommunication Union, in Geneva, Switzerland, where he's been championing a project for paperless interpretation. 

Barry Slaughter Olsen, Co-President of InterpretAmerica, LLC, is a conference interpreter and translator with more than a decade of international-level experience under his belt. He began interpreting at the age of 19 as a missionary. He has interpreted professionally since 1993, having spent the bulk of his career based in Washington, D.C. Barry has built up a distinguished client list, which includes the US Departments of State, Justice and Defense, Public Works and Government Services-Canada, the Inter-American Development Bank, Organization of American States, National Geographic Society, C-SPAN Television, and many other public and private sector clients. From 2002 to 2005 he was a staff interpreter at the Free Trade Area of the Americas Secretariat (FTAA). In 2007, he accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Translation and Interpretation at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in Monterey, California. In 2009, he was appointed Program Chair of the only accredited MA program in conference interpreting in the United States.

Barry has taught courses on consecutive and simultaneous interpreting in Latin America and the United States, and collaborated with the US Defense Department on a number of interpreter training initiatives. He was Spanish Translator in Residence in the Department of Language and Foreign Studies at American University (AU) in Washington, D.C., where he taught advanced translation for the university’s translation certificate program.

Barry holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Spanish Translation from Brigham Young University (BYU) and a Master’s Degree in Conference Interpretation (MACI) from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He is an active member of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC), based in Geneva, and was elected to the Association’s Training Committee in January 2009. He is also vice-president of the American Association of Language Specialists (TAALS), based in Washington, D.C.

As CEO, Louis F. Provenzano, Jr. is responsible for Language Line Services' world-wide operations. He works on behalf of the Monterey Language Capital Advocates Council and Monterey County Business Council. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of United Way Monterey County. Before joining Language Line Services in 2004, Mr. Provenzano held various senior executive positions at Metavante, Pitney Bowes and Reuters America. He is also on the Board of Directors of Language Line Holdings, Inc. Louis received his B.A. from Boston College in Romance Languages and International Business Law. Louis' comments on the language services industry, legislation and other topics can be found here www.louisprovenzano.com.

Brandon Scovill is Registered Interpreter in the Lao language and worked as an employee interpreter in Fresno, California from 2005 to 2010. In 2010 Brandon became a Representative of the California Federation of Interpreters (CFI), a labor union and professional organization representing over 700 professional court interpreters throughout California. Brandon moved to Sacramento to be close to the state capitol where he is working with a lobbyist to create new legislation for greater standards of language access in the state courts; and also as a central point from where he represents employee interpreters in the northern half of the state. Brandon holds a Master's degree in Organizational Behavior from the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management.

Dr. Kayoko Takeda is associate professor in the Graduate School of Translation, Interpretation, and Language Education at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She is a conference and legal interpreter, primarily working in the areas of business conferences, corporate litigation, and investor relations. She is the author of Interpreting the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, and her articles have been published in Interpreting, Meta, Across Languages and Cultures, and other academic journals. Kayoko’s research interests include interpreter education, the history of interpreting, and sociocultural aspects of interpreting.

Stephanie van Reigersberg is a veteran diplomatic interpreter with a distinguished career in government service. She has interpreted for countless heads of state and government and spent the bulk of her federal career as chief of the Interpreting Division of the Office of Language Services at the US Department of State, where she was responsible for providing interpreters in a myriad of languages to the White House and the Office of the Secretary of State, as well as for other government agencies. One of her career highlights as an interpreter administrator was organizing interpreting services for the Dayton Peace Talks in which an agreement was reached to end the three-and-a-half year war in Bosnia. She also interpreted for the negotiations to release the Iran hostages, the Panama Canal treaty negotiations, and for virtually all high-level contacts between the US and Cuba until her retirement. Stephanie now works as a free-lance interpreter, mainly for international organizations including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Organization of American States.

Bill founded Design Specialists Interpretation in 1972 in California. The firm is exclusively committed to the field of simultaneous interpretation and providing simultaneous conference interpreting services for high-level clients around the world. For nearly 40 years, Bill has had a reputation as a leading expert in the field -- he has designed leading edge technology for simultaneous interpreting, developed training labs and designed superior sound-isolation booths. He is also co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of SimulTel, Inc., a pioneer of Remote Simultaneous Medical Interpretation (RSMI). Studies have shown that RSMI results in more information transfer in significantly less time, with fewer errors, compared to consecutive telephone conference-call interpretation. Bill holds significant patents in equipment design and RSMI. His passion is helping the world to communicate and connect through the technology of simultaneous interpretation.

Fardad received his Masters Degree in Engineering in computer and communications from San Francisco State University and his Bachelor’s Degree in Computer communications from Tehran University in 1995. After graduation from college, he worked at PG engineering as design engineer in control and automation systems for 3 years, and then shifted his career path to audio and conference systems in 1997. He has more than 14 years experience in conference and interpretation solutions internationally. In June 2002, Fardad founded Media Vision USA headquartered in San Francisco with strong focus on providing congress and interpretation equipments. He has been involved in the design and project management in various high profile projects including the US Congress, Puerto Rico Senate House, The World Bank and IMF Headquarters, the State of Connecticut House of Reps, and the European Union office in Washington DC. Mr. Zabetian currently resides in San Francisco with high passion of providing communications and conferencing tools for people with various cultural and language background to exchange ideas and communicate more efficiently.